Seahorse care

[boogsawaste]

I was thinking about getting 1 or 2 seahorses for a 20 gallon tank I'm setting up. It will be seahorse only and the ones I'm getting (unsure of the exact species), but is captive bred and eat frozen mysis shrimp.

My question is how hard are they to care for in comparison to my other fish only tank with clownfish and other easy care guys? I know this might not be the easiest question to answer without knowing which species, but lets just figure one of the most common ones. Any other special care requirements?

 

[dustin_P74]

if they are readily eating they wont be that hard to care for

 

[Bifferwine]

Dustin is right, usually the biggest challenge is getting them to eat. They tend to do better in cooler temp tanks (like in the low 70s) and they usually need less flow (they will get stuck on stuff if the water current is too fast). I'd suggest shooting Picasso a PM if she doesn't respond to this thread, she has seahorses.

 

[boogsawaste]

Thanks for the info.

 

[Teixeira29]

I have never had seahorses but i hear they are hard to take care of. Just make sure they are eating and everything should be alright.

 

[claq50]

Im right now turning my 12 gallon tank into a seahorse tank. From what ive found out is they need low flow and need to be trained to eat frozen shrimp. The captive bred ones tend to be easier. They also need consistant water quality. Unlike the clowns which can be more adaptive to water chemistry changes, seahorses need a balanced system. My small tank has been running for a year now and its a corner nano so it has the wet/dry and protein skimmer built it. I also keep right now only hermits, turbos, and 1 damsel in there to keep up the bioload. One last thing about the seahorses is they must be kept in a tank that has no aggresive eaters in there. Seahorse are slow eaters and anything that eats faster then they do could effect there eating.

 

[dcantucson]

Just to add a late note. They are difficult to care for if you ever plan on going on vacation. Auto feeders won't be good enough, and they need to be feed 2-3 times daily. They are fascinating creatures though. I used to raise the Dwarf variety.